


let me steal this moment from you now

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: (even if i could) make a deal with god [your blue-eyed boys related short-fic] [47]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: CPTSD, Disabled Character, Flashbacks, HYDRA tempts Steve Rogers to reconsider his previous position on Hell, Hydra did a number on Bucky, M/M, Mentally Ill Character, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Triggered States, physical comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 18:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6819250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fact is, Bucky's self-control is God-damned amazing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let me steal this moment from you now

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of [**this series**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/132585), which is for short-fic associated with my fic [**your blue-eyed boys**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/107477), because I needed somewhere to stash it. 
> 
> Reminder that canon for this fic still stops at _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_. 
> 
> Fic originally from a long-forgotten comment-prompt.

The fact is, Bucky's self-control is God-damned amazing. 

Steve knows Bucky doesn't believe that, but it is. Frankly, it's amazing to the point of _disturbing_ , because Steve does actually know just how hard any given bad moment throws him, and - from the outside at least - how much that means he's holding down any time it happens around anyone else. _Anyone_ else. All any person other than Steve has ever seen from Bucky is a kind of shut-down blankness, quiet, wariness, and a focus to the point of mild hostility on _getting away_ from any other human being. Which honestly isn't that far from the way he's normally quiet and at least a few steps away from anyone else - just in bad moments, he wants more than a few steps. 

That's it. That's all that gets to the outside. Steve knows that for a fact about the entire time since Bucky's been home, at least, and he's pretty willing to bet heavily it's true since Bucky raided the bank-vault where they'd been keeping him after Insight C hit the water. And that's amazing. 

And the day Steve manages to get him to believe that, to _see_ how impressive that is, is the day Steve will actually go _find_ a fucking gold star to hang on the wall, even if it means buying some kind of hideously over-priced hipster-art faux-distressed mirror. He will. Because the way Bucky won't, can't see those moments as anything but failure makes Steve ache. So that day comes with a gold star. 

Today is not going to be that day. 

A floor away, in Clint's kind of cavernous living-room, there are people playing a ridiculous board game, the kind of game where the people playing it keep saying things like, "I can't believe I'm doing this." Steve had been playing; Bucky hadn't, because games with more than one player don't . . .work anymore. Even single-player ones don't if anyone knows anything about his progress. They found that out by accident with the first Candy Crush: the minute someone knows the score, how he's doing (Steve in that case, but they figure it really could be anyone), it's not a game anymore, it's not _play_. It's an expectation, with the usual looming _consequences_ for failure. And the expectation is always perfection. 

(Steve'd had to take the tablet away and then delete the game. It's not a problem now; now Bucky's obsessive about closing out anything he's using even if he's just putting the thing down for a couple minutes, and anything Bucky's playing goes in its own little folder and Steve does not touch it.) 

There'd come a point where Bucky got up, gone across the kitchen and down the one hall - mostly, Steve thinks, to put a wall between him and anyone who could see. And just as Steve was about to get up and check, Bucky'd come back out of the hall. Elizabeth'd been in the kitchen, between him and the door, and Steve'd watched that make him hesitate; she'd asked Bucky if he was okay, he'd lied and said he was fine, got most of the way through the word _excuse_ for _excuse_ me, moved past her and around her and left. 

Steve'd passed off his spot in the game to Bruce, got up, and texted Bucky from the kitchen. When he didn't get an answer, he sent _sorry, I'm out_ to Clint and Natasha and quietly hit the elevator. 

He found Bucky on the floor, a few steps into their kitchen. Sitting, but like he'd slid down against the cupboards, one knee bent up and the other leg lax out in front of him, fingers of his left hand digging with steadily increasing pressure into his right forearm. He let Steve stop that, and let Steve pull him over to the wide couch and right now he's mostly curled in on himself and shaking. 

It's shivering, fine tremors, like he's freezing or fevered. Steve sits behind him, Bucky's back to his chest and Steve's left arm lying across Bucky's lower ribcage, Bucky's left arm tucked underneath it. Safer that way, like this. His left hand cradles Bucky's clenched fist. Bucky pulled Steve's right arm around him, fingers interlacing and both of their hands pressed to his forehead. 

Steve sits, and waits. He rests his temple against the back of his best friend's head. He can't think of anything downstairs that would have set this off but the fact is there doesn't _need_ to be anything, exactly. Or with some bad luck it could be _anything_ \- the sound of two people laughing, someone asking someone else to pass them something. Maybe the name of some damn obscure book or painting or myth that got used as the code-name for an operation or the activation word for a mission. Steve now knows more about pagan Slavic myths, for instance, than the nuns would _ever_ have been happy with, but he mostly knows them so he can recognize any of the names or references _first_ and make sure they can be avoided. 

Few of that kind of thing even manage to prompt actual _memories_ anymore, between time and the God-damned chair, but sometimes they can blow on enough of a spark that Bucky's body knows, or thinks it knows, that he should be doing something. And then it panics when he can't even remember what it is. Was. Everything useful, everything that Bucky might be able to use to put it in context and get a handle on it - all that's gone. But buried right in like the head of a damn tick, there's still the driving certainty he should be doing something, and shame and fear about what'll happen because he's not. 

And then sometimes it's just things lining up on the inside of Bucky's head. Not quite subconscious thoughts, not quite conscious memories, in the wrong shape at the wrong time. Sometimes Bucky doesn't even know. Just gets thrown here without any explanation. 

If Steve hadn't come up, Bucky would have sat on the floor, probably broken his arm, eventually found someplace he could touch at least two walls and have a line of sight on the door and wait for who knows what. And if you didn't know better it'd almost look like that was better than this, like this is worse because if you didn't know better you wouldn't know that he does that when everything's shut down except waiting for the next blow or the next order. Until it doesn't come, and things wind up in his head tight enough he has to move, leave, be somewhere else. 

If Steve never came, Steve figures Bucky'd be halfway across New Jersey by morning and might only stop once he started breathing the ocean. Steve _hates_ that. Hates that he's pretty sure of that. 

Hates everyone responsible, everything that did this, that made this happen, that shoved this on Bucky to live with - except they hadn't wanted to let him fucking live, just obey and then put him away until they wanted to use him again. Steve has to shove that away, lock it right behind the door at the back of his head because it _doesn't help_ but holy Mary, full of grace, he _hates_ them. It's not even hot and bright anymore, at least not now, it's dull and sour and sullen, thick and old and still beating like some kind of malignant heart. Behind the door is the litany, endless litany of _how dare you how dare you how_ fucking _dare you_ and threats and curses and some stuff he should never say, or even think, and especially not mean. 

But does.

(God forgive him.) 

But it doesn't even matter, and there's no fucking point, and anyway, they're all dead. So that all goes behind the door, and so does the helpless and equally pointless litany of _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, this should never have happened, I should have stopped it, I'm sorry_ , and the door gets shut and the lock goes click. 

"It's okay," he says, aloud, keeping his voice low. "It's fine, we're fine." The litany that might _actually_ be some use, be some help. "You're here, you're safe, we're safe. Promise." 

The kitten's wormed her way in between Bucky's ankles and at least she's not wailing. 

And even with the shaking Steve can feel Bucky trying, too. Trying to get them to stop, trying to get himself under control. He wants to say _shh, stop, you don't have to_ but it's not like Bucky's going to listen right now. It's not like Steve would listen if it were him. 

When Bucky manages to say, anything, his voice is uneven, and unsteady. "I can't," he says and then Steve can feel him try to take a breath and he can feel it not work right; Bucky breathes, _Fuck_ and it's just air and the click at the end. "I'm, I can't, I'm s -" 

Steve kisses the back of his head and tries to remember that if tightening his arms a little is probably good, probably counts as reassuring, he has Bucky's left arm between his arm and Bucky's ribs and breaking one of them _isn't_ good, Rogers, so get a damn handle on yourself. "Stop," he says. "Bucky, stop, it's okay. You're fine, you don't need to do anything. Okay? It's fine. Don't." 

Tells himself to get a handle on that too, Rogers, that tone of voice that's edging towards _desperate_. Because that's not going to help. That's not who you need to be right now. 

He doesn't know if Bucky hears him or believes him or if talking's just that far beyond him right now anyway, but Bucky does stop trying to talk. Curls tighter and shudders once, hard enough to stand out from the shivering that was there before and keeps going after. 

Steve wishes he could say something that mattered. Put words around how amazing Bucky is, and how it's incredible he's still here, whether Steve means _here_ as in _alive_ or _here_ as in sitting on this couch, letting Steve touch him. Either. Both. But it doesn't matter how much he wants to - he knows, he knows right now it'll come out wrong. It'll sound hollow and fake, patronizing and infantilizing even if that's not what Steve means at _all_. It just . . . will. 

He kisses Bucky's shoulder instead and rests his forehead there. And Bucky's right hand tightens against his. 

 

It does ease, eventually. Always does. Muscles gradually release and the shaking breaks up into little bursts, like ice breaking up on a river, and then eventually it stops. The tension in Bucky's body shifts from rigid self-control to the sadly familiar shapes of self-disgust and he lets go of Steve's hand. 

Steve sits up as Bucky unfolds himself and shifts over to sit, pulling himself away. "Fuck," he says. "Sorry." 

For a second Steve hesitates, but even though he pulled away Bucky hasn't gone _far_. Just barely away, and turned a bit so his back's against the back of the couch. So even if he's angry at himself, the anger's losing against not wanting to be far away, or alone. 

So Steve reaches out and combs Bucky's hair out of his face with his fingers, and Bucky ends up turning into the touch; Steve runs his hand down the curve of Bucky's neck and lets it rest on his shoulder. 

"You haven't done anything to be sorry for," he says. "You don't _have_ anything to be sorry for." 

When there's a little more force behind Bucky's exhale and he turns his face away, Steve says, "Bucky - hey." 

After a second, Bucky looks at him, even if his eyes are closer to the dead flat look that means inside his head he's pulling away. Steve says, "Bucky. You left quietly. _Politely_. You even answered Elizabeth. If I hadn't decided to follow you up here you wouldn't've even interrupted _me_ \- _I_ did that. So congratulations, Buck, in the middle of a total fucking mess you were _probably_ more polite than Tony manages on a fucking regular basis. So don't - just don't," he says. 

Skips saying exactly _what_ not, because Bucky already knows. 

Bucky tries to start with, "Now there's a fucking low bar," digging the heel of his left hand into the edge of his eye-socket, but Steve catches his forearm and pulls it down, metal cool under his fingers. 

"You lining up to tell him off?" Steve demands, and makes himself not sigh when Bucky turns his head away. He squeezes Bucky's shoulder and then slides his hand forward to curve around the back of his neck. "Bucky. You don't _owe_ anyone more than that. Hell you don't even owe anyone _that_. You did _nothing wrong_. Just . . . " and now he does sigh. "Hear me, okay?" 

He doesn't exactly mean for that to come out in Russian, but it does, and at least it means Bucky looks at him again. And it's still a question. "And c'mere," he adds, back in English." 

Steve's actually more and more okay with not putting so much question in _those_ two syllables. Hell, at this point it's almost a balancing act between putting enough that he's not getting careless, and not putting so much that Bucky starts lashing out at himself for being weak and making Steve think he needs to be careful, and frankly Steve is pretty confident of his ability to read when tension is resistance. And right now - 

Right now it's more like the moment Steve tugs even a careful bit on his arm Bucky's _allowed_ to have what he wants, which is to lie down partly beside and partly on Steve on the couch, leaning on Steve's shoulder, one of Steve's arms around his shoulders and the other around his waist. The only thing he does is pull back long enough to twist around to face Steve instead, mostly - Steve thinks - so his left arm's resting on top where he doesn't have to worry about it. 

Steve can feel Bucky's pulse in his skin, and his heart-rate's still too high. But it always is. 

The kitten tells them off and crawls up Bucky's leg, claws digging into denim, until she's padding more or less onto his waist and curls up on his hip, leaning against Steve's. 

After a moment or two, Steve says, "Remember that time I had croup - " and then his mouth turns up at the corner and he stops when Bucky's at least got enough energy to get irritated and dig his left thumb briefly into Steve's rib. 

"You're so full of shit," Bucky says, without heat, and Steve rests his head against Bucky's. 

And if the shaking's worn off, Bucky obviously still feels pretty God-damned awful. If he's staying where he is and letting Steve hold him, every part of him's still twisted up like unhappy barbed wire and the quiet blankness - 

It's not the one Steve hates most; that's the one that Steve knows would keep Bucky sitting there if you took a crowbar to him. It's a few steps up from that, at least. But it's still not good. And he'd say _tell me_ but he already knows - knows enough, anyway - and all he can do about it is small things, over and over; he can't fix it outright. 

He can do this, though. 

"I know which one of our arguments would sway a jury," he says, and the huff of breath from Bucky could be an incredulous laugh, or a derisive one, or a snort, or who knows what. 

But he says, "Shut up, Steve," and that's a good sign.


End file.
